


This Could Be the Start

by getalittleclosey



Series: Laughter Is Eternity If Joy Is Real [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drinking, F/M, This is all pre-relationships and stuff if that makes sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getalittleclosey/pseuds/getalittleclosey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Tanya releases her death grip on Harry’s hand as she turns and grabs the girl’s arm, pulling her into their four person circle. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“This is Eleanor,” she states and smiles.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>or, when Eleanor and Louis meet for the first time</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Could Be the Start

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man this is part of a longer thing that I wrote like a year ago and never finished...and it's definitely not my best written thing but I liked this piece of it well enough and it stands alone!! So yay I hope you enjoy it :) 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is all fake. Also Tanya is a real life friend of Eleanor's so like she's not _really_ an original female character I guess? Series title from Get On Your Boots by U2!

It's V Fest 2011. He has been wandering around with Stan, half hanging off of him in the way that drunk people do. But it's okay because Stan is hanging of him as well. Louis has the sudden thought that if either of them moved too quickly, they would both fall. To test this newly discovered theory, he stands up straight. Stan, not expecting his support system to move, falls into Louis and sure enough, they are now both lying on the dirt. They look at each other and burst into laughter. 

“Staaaaaan! You look ridiculous!” Louis says through giggles. 

“That coming from the guy who has dirt all over his face!” Stan glares and replies, but can’t hold the glare and laughs again.

“I do not!” Louis responds, sitting up and crossing his arms in a very childlike manner. 

“You so do.” Stan says as he too sits up and looks at his best mate, laughing. “You are so drunk right now Lou, it’s not even funny.” 

“But it’s okay because you’re drunk too, which means you can’t make fun of me.”

“Why would that stop me from making fun of you?” Stan questions him. 

“Because if you do, I’ll tell everybody the dumb things you’ve done today!” 

“Blackmail Louis, really? You won’t even remember what I did today!”

“Yes I will,” Louis starts determinedly, “I’ll tell Harry and he’ll remember for me.” And with that, Louis pulls his phone from his back pocket, tries to unlock it twice, finally types it correctly on the third try, and dials Harry’s number. It rings twice before- 

“Lou?” says a worried sounding Harry. 

“Yes that’s my name! Why are you calling me Harry?” Louis says, forgetting that he’s the one who made the call in the first place.

“Louis, are you drunk?” 

“No of course not! What would make you think that?” Louis giggles into the phone.

“Maybe the fact that one, you actually called me while you were with Stan, which you never do. Two, you forgot you called me, and three, you are giggling like mad Lou.” Harry says, unable to contain a laugh of his own at his very drunk best mate.

“Ok yeah you got me Haz!” Louis says, giving up the game.

“So, why’d you call Lou?”

“Hmm that reminds me, I don’t actually remember. I think it had something to do with Stan being a prat.”

“Hey!” calls Stan from where he was sitting, still next to him on the dirt, “I resent that!” 

“Lou, just how drunk are you?” Harry starts. “Wait- never mind, don’t answer that. I’m going to come get you okay? Because somehow I doubt Stan is capable of carrying you right now. So I’ll see you soon, love you Lou, bye.” 

“Love you Haz!” Louis grins into the phone, only having heard half of what Harry said. He had been busy avoiding the dirt Stan was throwing at him. 

“HARRY’S COMING!” He shouts to Stan and pulls himself off the ground, then reaches for Stan’s hand to help him stand as well. And they’re off again, back on track and covered in dirt.

x 

Three hours later, Harry shows up with an annoyed Ed Sheeran in tow. 

“I can’t wait until you get your license.” Ed grumbles at Harry. 

“Oh you know you’ll miss driving me around all the time. You love it!” Harry responds with a cheeky grin.  

“Just shut up and let’s find the drunk idiots.” Ed says, but he has a half grin on his face. He really does like having Harry around, so it’s not so bad. They walk around V Fest, weaving through sweaty bodies and drunken friends and couples laughing and drinking and music playing all around them. Harry suddenly felt very, very sober. 

“Why don’t you just call him?” Ed looks at Harry. 

“He won’t answer.” Harry responds, sure of himself. It was enough of a surprise that Louis had taken his phone out to call him and there was no way he’d do it again being as drunk as he sounded on the phone. So they continue walking and searching until Harry catches sight of a group of teenage girls talking a little too loud and excitedly to be normal. And sure enough, they were fans, Harry finds out as he walks closer and sees a very red Louis next to an even redder Stan. And they were both covered in dirt.

At that moment Louis looks away from the picture he's taking and sees Harry.

“HAZ!” He yells and bounces over, giving him a hug and covering Harry in dirt. “See Stan, I told you he was coming!” 

Harry can’t help but grin at his friend, drunk though he may be, he's still Louis and it's still nice to see him. Louis on the other hand does not seem content with just hugging Harry at that moment. He thinks it's unfair that Harry gets a hug and no one else does, so he goes around and hugs Ed (what is he doing here?) and the group of girls that have congregated and even Stan before he realises it's Stan and that he had just seen him. He laughs at himself and falls over into Harry’s arms because Harry seems pretty stable right then and Louis is tired. Autographs are hard when the pen keeps slipping from his hand. 

Harry is about to pull Louis into his car and sleep there for the night when he feels a body slam into him, engulfing him in the smell of sweat and alcohol and perfume. He looks up and sees...Tanya? When is the last time he saw her? 

“Harry!” She speaks loudly into his ear. “What are you doing here? It’s been ages! We need to catch up. Wow you’re tall now! And you have actual muscles! Not just Gemma’s little brother now are you?” She says this all really fast and slightly slurred with a, was that wink? at the end of the ramble. He hugs her back which is very very weird because never did he think he’d get to hug _Tanya_. Tanya is older than him, and too pretty for him and Gemma’s friend. Not Harry’s. Yet here she is with her arms wrapped around his neck and showing no signs of letting go. He looks up again and sees Louis staring at him curiously. And that’s when it becomes slightly awkward.  

“Tanya?” He says as he pulls her arms from around his neck. But he definitely notices that she keeps one hand firmly placed in his. “This is Ed, Louis, and Sta- wait where’d Stan go?” he questions, then looks around and sees him in the distance with one of the fangirls and decides to leave him alone. 

“Hello Tanya,” Ed starts, “nice to meet you, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to the car now that Harry here has found Louis and he’s not dead.” And Ed proceeds to walk away and do just that. Harry figures he had enough on his hands and that Louis will be able to drive him home in the morning, so he doesn’t try to stop him. But he does yell a thank you at him. He hopes Ed heard. 

“Hi Tanya” Louis puts his hand out and Tanya reaches out and shakes it. It's a very awkward handshake seeing as Tanya refuses to let go of Harry’s right hand and Louis refuses to stop leaning on Harry’s left side and stand upright. Mostly because he is pretty sure he will fall if he does, and partially because Harry is just very comfortable. 

It's then that Harry notices that there is a girl standing slightly behind Tanya. At first he had thought that it was just another fangirl, but then she reaches out and whispers in Tanya’s ear, reminding Tanya that she is indeed still there. Tanya releases her death grip on Harry’s hand as she turns and grabs the girl’s arm, pulling her into their four person circle.  

“This is Eleanor.” She states and smiles.  

And for Louis, that's the beginning of everything changing. Eleanor comes swooping in, seemingly harmless, somebody he thinks he will never see again, seemingly somebody nice enough to spend the evening with as Harry goes off with Tara or Tori or something with a T. He's drunk ok? So what if he can’t remember a name.  And Eleanor is nice to talk to, his age, and very pretty. But he assumes that after this night of talking that it would never see her again. And after Harry doesn’t return with Tanya (yeah Tanya, that was it) Louis decides it's only the nice thing to do to let Eleanor sleep in his car with him. So they stumble their way towards his car, giggling at themselves, open the doors and immediately fall asleep. 

x

Eleanor blinks and rubs her eyes, mascara glueing her eyelashes together. She sits up and looks around and realises she's in a car. And it isn’t Tanya’s. Shit. She looks to her right and finds a boy slumped in the driver’s seat of this unknown car. Shit. What did she do last night? She blinks hard, hoping it will clear her head and waits for memories to come rushing back. To her frustration they don’t. She takes a closer look at the boy and realises he is quite good looking, albeit covered in dirt. She decides this is probably his car, and therefor it would be rude to leave without thanking him for letting her crash. 

Eleanor nudges his shoulder and his head comes up and he mumbles something unintelligible and Eleanor, despite herself, stares at him with wide eyes. This isn’t just any handsome boy who’s car she's found herself inside, this is Louis Tomlinson of the X Factor sensation One Direction. _What had happened last night?_ she wonders again. Louis turns and looks at her and it's then that everything floods back to her brain. Arriving at V Fest with Tanya, getting as drunk as possible just because this was her first time at V Fest that she legally could, laughter and conversations with faceless people and then Tanya pulling at her arm and whispering to her that “That’s Harry Styles! I was friends with his sister Gemma back in school!” And before Eleanor knew it, Tanya had ran straight at him, tripping slightly, and landed in his arms. 

Then she had seen Louis and talked to Louis and laughed with Louis about stuff she didn’t remember and suddenly she was asleep in Louis’ car and now she was here. Staring at Louis Tomlinson from One Direction. She had the thought to pinch herself but decided against it because what if Louis thought she was weird? And did pinching yourself even work?  

She then realises she has been quietly staring for a bit now and should probably stop. She looks down at her fingers and nervously laughs. 

“So...” she says and isn’t sure what to say after that because it wasn’t like they had slept together or even kissed, so why was this awkward? 

“So...” Louis speaks then and laughs too because he doesn’t know what else to do. “Do you have any idea where Tanya and Harry might have gone last night” he says, grasping for conversation. 

“I might actually!” Eleanor replys, happy to have something to talk about. “Come on, follow me, let’s go find them. I bet they’re at Tanya’s car.” She opens the door, steps out and brushes herself off, smoothing out her clothes then quickly ties her hair into a side-braid, assuming it is a tangled mess. 

“Yeah, ok, let’s go,” Louis starts, excited to hear about Harry’s night. He too opens the door and stands up before sitting straight back down from getting a bout of the hangover spins. Eleanor laughs and makes her way around the car to grab his hand and pull him up. 

“Let’s go get some coffee first, that would help wouldn’t it?” she questions. 

“No not coffee! But I am in need of some tea please, do you mind if we stop to get some first?” and then “Wait! How are you not hungover at all?”

“I’ve always been lucky and I don’t really get the hungover feelings, you jealous?” she says with a smirk and yes, yes he is.

Louis locks the car and brushes as much of the dirt off of himself as he stands and startes to fiddle with his hair, but it is too much of a mess to get back into place so he sighs and gives up. He and Eleanor walk to one of the stands that is _thankthelord_ selling tea and also fried food, the hangover breakfast of champions. They are silent as they walk and eat, mostly due to the fact that Louis can’t uphold a conversation very well due to his massive headache. But it's a nice quiet; a break from the constant noise that surrounds him what seems like all the time these days. And it's after he finishes his tea and they begin to search for Tanya’s car that Louis decides he likes Eleanor. He likes that she had talked to him last night when Harry and Stan left him alone. He likes that she had teased him and not been starstruck at all. He likes that she hadn’t just left him this morning, and had instead come with him to find Harry (and Tanya). He likes that she is okay with the quiet even though she had been very loud and fun the night before. He needs some quiet in his life to balance out the loud.  

“There it is!” Eleanor says as she points at a navy car, the make of which Louis is not certain. They walk up to it and Eleanor peeks inside, hoping to not have to see her housemate in a precarious position with Harry Styles, and she breathes a sigh of relief when she realises they are both asleep and it seems like they both have clothes on. Louis walks up next to her and bangs on the window in not really respectable kind of way and shouts through the window. 

“Hazza!! Wake up!” He pounds some more, a smirk on his face, “You forced Ed to drive all this way just to see your best mate and then you ran off without me and now you won’t even wake up to wish me good morning!” Louis pouts in an over-the-top and obviously joking manner. Eleanor stifles a laugh because Louis is being so ridiculous. Louis hears and turns to her and flashes a grin. “Nice to see someone appreciates me, unlike Harry here who has yet to wake up and enjoy my presence.” Eleanor outright laughs then because there is something about the way he says it that just makes her laugh. She can’t help it. Then Louis joins in her laughing, unable to keep up his facade of being angry at Harry and it's then that Harry wakes up, nudges Tanya, and they both sit up and open the door to see what is going on. And they are faced with the site of a very messy-haired Eleanor and a still covered in dirt Louis doubled over in laughter next to Tanya’s car door. 

Tanya looks at them and notices that Eleanor’s skirt has twisted and is now facing sideways and barks a laugh and Harry takes one look at Louis’ usually perfect hair and covers his mouth when a sound he doesn’t know he can make comes out of it. To anybody who walks by, they must look like quite the sight, four rumpled and dirty teenage kids laughing until Eleanor is crying and she looks up and wipes the tears from her eyes, takes a deep breath, and gives Tanya a hug. 

“Good morning Tanya, care to apologise for ditching me last night?” Eleanor mock frowns at her friend.

“Nope! Not apologizing because one, I had a very good time last night and two, it seems like you did as well.” Tanya smiles as Eleanor turns pink at the cheeks. Harry sends Louis a sly glance and he too turns slightly red. 

“It wasn’t like that!” Louis protests, “We just talked and- wait, why are Eleanor and I the red ones? You two are the ones who did who knows what last night!” And that's Harry and Tanya’s cue to blush. 

“Ok umm let’s just forget this and go get some breakfast, yeah?” Harry says, looking around for the group’s approval. He sees nods and takes that as a sign to hug Louis good morning and start walking to get food. The rest follow and they eat their late (second for Eleanor and Louis) breakfast together and somehow, it isn’t awkward, it's fun. If things were different and they were just Harry and Louis, if they weren’t about to release their first single and record a music video and release their first album, then Harry could see himself possibly dating his crush from when he was fourteen and Louis is getting on well with Eleanor and could see himself becoming good friends with her. 

But the busy life of Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson of One Direction doesn’t allow that. So they finish their breakfast and say their goodbyes to the girls. They find Stan slumped over on a picnic bench. They each grab one of his arms and half carry him back to Louis’ car before dumping him in the backseat. Harry slides into the passenger side and Louis drives them to Stan’s house to drop him off, but it isn’t until Harry and Louis arrive back at their flat that Louis checks his phone and sees that it's open to a new contact, a contact named Eleanor Calder.  

Louis grins to himself; when had she done that, the sneaky girl. He hadn’t even noticed his phone missing! And Louis has discovered a new reason to like this Eleanor.

**Author's Note:**

> So, like, I have more of this that like eventually turns into Louis/Harry? So I might post that in the future if I clean it up and stuff? We'll see!!! 
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading!! Find me on tumblr at getalittleclosey :)


End file.
